Vacation responders, snoozing, even rudimentary forms of read receipts? Oh, how far email clients have come to meet up with our instant message services. But if there's anything our chat apps can learn from its progenitor, it's scheduled replies — and Telegram has picked up that trick as well as a few others in its latest update.

The app is following up on its last big update which brought up new chat modes such as Silent Messages and Slow Mode. It put these features into a somewhat tricky access toggle — with a long press of the Send button.

Well, add one more to the pile: Schedule Message. It's rather self-explanatory. You draft a message, hold the send button, tap "Schedule Message," then set the time and date for when the message is meant to be sent. You'll also be able to schedule reminders in your Saved Messages as well.

A couple of smaller improvements include custom Cloud Themes which allow users to color up chats the way they want to and even pair it up with a custom wallpaper. Themes can be shared between users and loaded in the Chat Settings for each thread. The company has also animated more emoji for people to pizzazz a convo up with.

Finally, Telegram has set up an extra hurdle of privacy for people participating in group chats. Those who set "Who Can See My Phone Number" to Nobody will now see an additional setting, "Who Can Find Me By My Number." This will limit the number of solicitations from those who already have your number but aren't people you trust. You're able to set it so that only the contacts on your phone will be able to find you on Telegram.

The company recognized that its app is being "used by people to organize themselves in the face of oppression," acknowledging how Hong Kong protesters have been organizing events on short notice and without a figurehead through a link to a Reuters report. With the relatively anonymous nature of phone numbers and how big these groups can get, there have been some fears of counter-protesters and government actors gaining intelligence to the movements.

All of these improvements are available now on Telegram v5.11 for Android. Get it at the Play Store or on APK Mirror.

Source: Telegram